Thursday, April 19, 2012

Rainbows

This is the little "puppet" that I have used for years with this song. I'm pretty sure it was a Mailbox idea/printable.

Q-tip Rainbows

ROY G. BIV

Our version of the ROY G. BIV guy that floats around the Internet. :-) The one that was most appealing to me really didn't seem like it used many skills so I created a miniature that incorporated color word recognition, noticing details in a face and drawing, and scissors. With my older student, I gave her a complete box of crayons and encouraged her to find the color word that was the same on the hair. This was a bit of a challenge but she was successful. This particular crayon box didn't have "indigo" though so we used blue-violet.

You can download this simple pattern here if you wish. Another variation you can do is use the precut construction paper rectangles like the others use but have the child practice writing the color words onto the strip.

We've used our ROY G. BIV guy is a visual all throughout the week. Here's one activity we referred to him for.

They enjoyed seeing these on the windowsill with the light shining through. But these were for more than just for visual appreciation. K. used her ROY G. BIV guy to decide which colors she needed to use to make each other.She first measured a 1/2 C. of gems into each glass. Then she poured water to the top of the gems and added 4 drops of coloring. So if she wanted orange she put 2 drops of red and 2 drops of yellow. We cheated on indigo and used purple food coloring but to make purple she did the blue and the red. Gave them a stir and within 10 minutes they were a nice color. We did leave them in their glasses until later afternoon though.

This 16 oz container of clear Water Gems were from Meijer for $2.99. Since then they've begun to carry 8oz containers at our local Dollar Tree for $1.00. Then we used them for sensory exploration.

Well, what was difficult to see in the glass was the difference between violet and blue-violet. But in the picture...obviously I mixed the two up. LOL Oh well, the children don't care and especially since we ended up dumping them into a pool. Now they LOVED that...bouncing balls everywhere (contained in the pool).

Tip: Water gems expand in size. When these particular gems get too full they squish and break apart making a jelly substance. So I've learned to keep watch for extra large ones and remove them from water to dry out a bit. Also, since these gems take on what color the water is...that means they'll also turn the water whatever color the gems are after a long period of time. (It immediately looks like make the water colored...but in reality, the water is clear for quite a bit if you check it out.) So if you allow the children to play with these beads all together in any sort of water...expect the water to eventually turn brown and if you leave the gems in the brown water...well, they will turn brown too after quite a period of time. You can turn these gems back clear. It's quite a process but it's doable! I soak them in clear water, changing the water frequently and checking for large gems that will turn to mush and removing them. Takes awhile though!

Rainbow Ice

These didn't turn out exactly as I imagined. But we can see the layers. I found that even when I added a lot of food coloring into the water, the coloring tended to pool to the center of the cube when it froze. I'm sure there is some scientific reasoning there. :-) And of course, you are going to get the brown water when they start to melt. The children do not mind at all and it's a good concept for them to understand!

I used the binder approach this time and yes, I like this idea. I'm going to just collect my rebus recipes in a binder and then I can flip to the one I would like. You can see how I set the binder up in the picture.

This week's rebus recipe definitely brought excitement! I went back and another page to the document so that one of the recipes didn't use of the word "pudding" in the case I wanted to use something a bit more healthier...like plain or vanilla yogurt, next time. I also took the tray off the 2nd step as our bowls were too big and it was easier to sanitize the table cloth and do it directly on the table. Download your copy here.

They definitely aren't as "pretty" as some of the pics I've seen on the Internet but I'm going to guess that they were adult made for the sake of the picture. :-P Expect that they'll turn purplish brown as they just can't resist stirring. LOL One kiddos said, "It looks like chocolate pudding now!" And though pudding is not a favorite snack around here, it was definitely worth the process.

What a neat concept. Didn't work out exactly as I thought it would but I would definitely do this again with a few tweaks. One issue we had was that the sponges (I ended up getting several different types out for the kiddos to explore with) just wouldn't rub smoothly across the paper. Perhaps they just didn't have enough paint on their sponge. But boy! I sure would have loved to have had a large piece of pexiglass for this project. It would have been so cool to do this outside on a standup transparent easel! We might try the sliding glass door sometimes when I work up my courage. :-) But if they get enough paint on their sponge and close enough together they can see how the colors mix. :-P

Finger Painting

We love this finger paint paper! You can get it from Amazon.com. It's called Scratch-Art Multicolor Finger Paint Paper. I'm pretty sure I got mine from Discount School Supply but that was awhile ago and it doen't look like they sell it there anymore. The rainbow was done at the very end of their exploration, when they were all done painting. I had a binder up with the word in upper and lowercase for them to refer too.

Pasta Rainbows

How to Make a Liquid Rainbow by Lori Shores

This book gives step by step instructions on how to make the rainbow. I wouldn't say that my preschoolers were all that interested but my school-age boys were!

Ha! I have more pictures and things to share but this is ending up to be a very long post! Maybe I'll just share one more literacy activity.

Rainbow Rhyming

These were old rhyming rainbows I found in a tub. How I know they are old? Obviously it was before the day of a scanner here in this household since the clip art was cut and pasted onto the rainbow before they were laminated. And I also know because now I would have left one cloud empty so they could put the rhyming answer on the other cloud. :-) But this is how I used these cards with my oldest student who does well with rhyming. She's doing more spelling/writing now and so together we worked with spelling one of the words. During this process we could informally talk about how vowels and blends make their different sounds. Then she pushed the beginning sound of one word and added the beginning sound of the rhyming word. This was a great visual for her about what rhyming is. I only used my rhyming word sets that were in the same word family though. Otherwise it would defeat the purpose of helping her understand that it's the beginning part of the word that changes, not the ending. :-)

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We're on a new adventure! Schooling at home...and homeschooling, for the time being. :-) This blog is a great way for me to keep track of some of our happenings that are worth remembering! Then it also provides the families I am working with and anyone else who might be interested, a sneak peak of what's going on.